


Emergence

by StrongerTogether



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:45:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerTogether/pseuds/StrongerTogether
Summary: The sudden emergence of Kai Parker means nothing good for the Saltzman twins or their friends and family who will stop at nothing to protect them.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a normal Saturday night at the Old Mill.  
Until it wasn’t.

Instead of sitting in her room secretly fangirling over Cutthroat Kitchen, Hope Mikaelson was, for once, partaking in the Salvatore Saturday night spirit and sipping something cheap and battery acid-esque amongst a group of her peers consisting of Lizzie and Josie, MG, Kaleb, Landon, and Rafael.

For the fact that Lizzie could be within twenty feet of Rafael without completely losing her cool now, Hope had to say she was impressed. She hoped that the looks she kept shooting Lizzie’s way everytime Raf opened his mouth and Lizzie didn’t bite his head off was conveying that. However, considering the tense set of the blonde twin’s shoulder, Hope doubted whether her supportiveness was having much of an affect even if Lizzie had taken note of it.

Since their all too exciting, mummy-filled revelation of a spring break road trip, the girls seemed to have buried the hatchet. Lizzie was still Lizzie, of course; but Hope found that, when Lizzie’s level-eleven animosity wasn’t directed at her, she found the blonde’s snark to be somewhat endearing. Josie, for her part, seemed palpably relieved to have been forgiven by both Hope and her sister for her less-than-stellar behavior three years prior. Hope’s unwavering understanding and attempts at friendship with her served to further soothe her conscience. Though Alaric’s continued training and trust with Hope alone continued to be a bone between all the girls, an unspoken peace appeared to have been called.

Hope found she rather liked getting on and being friends with the Saltzman twins.

“Whoop, whoop! Happy Saturday, Salvatorian sluts!” a familiar voice chorused.

  
The group of seven turned their heads to find Penelope Park sauntering her way toward them with a bottle hanging by its neck between Penelope’s fingers that, if Hope was not mistaken, was a very well-aged bottle of booze. While most of the group had no particular reaction to the raven-haired witch’s sudden appearance, Hope could see the way Lizzie stood up straighter and Josie casted her eyes to the pine needle-scattered forest floor.

“ ‘Sup, Peez?” MG greeted her.

“She-devil,” Lizzie muttered in lieu of a ‘hello’.

“Hey, Penelope,” Hope said neutrally. “What have you got there?”

  
Penelope lifted the bottle up casually. “What? This? You know, I’m not really sure. All I know is that it’s Italian and it’s older than all of us combined.”

“Do we even want to know how you got your hands on that?” Landon chuckled nervously.

Penelope shrugged her lithe shoulders. “Probably not,” she answered honestly. She held the bottle up a bit higher, “Care to try it?”

Landon was just about to answer, but whatever his answer would have been was swallowed as a shockwave of magic shook the ground and everyone standing on it, knocking them all to the forest floor. The small campfires and torches that had been blazing all around them started shooting flames so high that they began catching the lowest branches of the pine trees aflame. Other who were quick to recover, vampires mostly, began running, screaming, or frantically searching out their friends.

  
Hope was the first of the group to come back to her senses, a dull ringing in her ears from the shockwave and hitting her head on the ground. When she saw the branches of the trees burning with the beginnings of an all-out forest fire, she waved her hand at the evergreen canopy up above her with a smoke-choked cough of, “ _Setendre_!”.

  
The flames extinguished and Hope pushed herself to her feet, looking around at her classmates running and shouting, fleeing the scene of the party. Flames were still scorching the ground and some of the bushes in the clearing of the Old Mill were on fire but nothing risking an impending inferno. Hope decided she should save her magical strength for whatever or whoever had incited the shockwave and subsequent chaos in the first place. Smoke burned her eyes as she tried to take stock of her surroundings, of her friends, of anything that might be out of the ordinary.

“Is everybody alright?” Hope asked, still searching the darkened clearing for further signs of an attack.

“We’re good,” Landon said as he was being helped to his feet by Raf.

“What the frilly hell was that?” Lizzie asked, shouldering past Kaleb and MG to be closer to Hope and Penelope at the front of the cluster. As she passed Josie, she brushed her hand and gave her a look of questioning concern, to which Josie replied with a nod.

  
“AH!” a voice boomed out of the darkness and almost out of nowhere. “Mystic Falls, it is good to be back!”

The group of eight whipped their heads around in the direction of the voice to find a tall, and dark-haired man standing several paces away from them with his arms outspread. His back was turned to them, but his very presence made Hope feel as if the air had suddenly grown colder despite the flames burning all around them.  
“You know,” the man went on, as if simply to himself, “there were moments when I honestly thought that I would never see this place again.” Slowly, he began turning around to face the group of teenagers. As his face was revealed in the flicker of the flames, his eyes glimmered with mischief and malice as he set his sights directly on the twins standing just behind Hope. “Or the two of you. Twinsies! Josie and Lizzie! You know, the last time I saw you, you were barely past my knees!”

“Oh my God,” Penelope said, hardly loud enough for Hope to hear her over the crackle of the fire and the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears.

  
When Hope looked at her, horror and recognition showed on Penelope’s face. Then she caught sight of the twins’ faces as well as the stranger stepped closer and began toward them. With the menacing look on the man’s face in the flicker of the inferno burning around them and the way his sights were set on the twins only, Hope’s memory kicked in at the same time her instincts did.

Meanwhile, Penelope was spinning on her heels and shouting across the clearing, “MG! Kaleb! Get the twins out of here!”

“What? Why?” Kaleb asked.

Penelope’s eyes blazed with fury and fear and, in unison with Hope, she screamed,. “NOW!”

MG nodded quickly. He didn’t seem to need to be told twice, quickly disappearing in the blink of an eye with Josie, while Kaleb muttered, “Okay, okay!” before vanishing with Lizzie as well.

  
The man stopped short and looked around before laughing, “Oh, I have missed these games!”

  
“Hope? What’s going on?” Landon asked her lowly, taking her arm while the man seemed preoccupied.

“Yeah, who is that?” Rafael added anxiously.

Hope turned to the two boys. “I really can’t explain it right now, but I need you guys to make sure that everyone gets out of the woods and back to the school safely, okay? Please, just trust me,” she tacked on when she saw them about to argue.

  
Rafael nodded with an accepting, “Okay”. He took his foster-brother’s arm and began pulling him toward the woods that led to the school. “We’ll get the pack to help. Lan, c’mon.”

“Stay safe,” Landon told Hope, sensing the danger of the situation. “This guy seems… unhinged.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Hope quipped, kissing him briefly before the pair departed.

Left alone, Hope and Penelope shared a look before they squared off with the man who had stopped when the twins had been all but apparated away from him. The girls stood shoulder to shoulder, staring him down, both poised in fighting stances and ready to attack at a moment’s notice.

“You know who he is?” Hope asked the raven-haired girl lowly.

“Yeah,” Penelope answered her through gritted teeth.

“Then you know what he’s capable of,” the Mikaelson tribrid said. “You should go now.”

Penelope grinned while looking at the man like she wanted to watch him burn. “Not a chance.”

“I thought you might say that,” Hope said. She turned her head ever so slightly toward Penelope, never taking her gaze off of the dark man. “Tag-team?”

“Worked for us last time,” Penelope replied.

At the same time that their adversary took a step toward them, the girls clasped hands and muttered, “Kondui tounen!” The man flew back several feet and tumbled end over end across the clearing.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Dr. Alaric Saltzman was in his office, sitting at his desk going over ancient tomes and trying to gain more insight into Malivore when the door burst open and suddenly MG, Josie, Kaleb, and Lizzie were in front of him in the flash of an eyes.

“Dad!” Josie yelled.

Alaric was on his feet in a moment. “What? What happened?” he asked.

“Dr. Saltzman, we were all hanging out at the Old Mill--” MG began.

“-Which is not the important part right now!-” Lizzie added, seeing her father’s knowing and exasperated face.

“-and there was this blast and then fire and then this guy appeared practically out of nowhere-” Kaleb continued.

“-and then Hope and _Penelope Park_ , of all people, was yelling at these two to get us out of there!” Lizzie was practically shouting, gesturing wildly to the boys.

“And, Dad, the man in the woods… he _knew_ us,” Josie went on, “and he looked _really_ familiar. Like… someone from a childhood nightmare, but… real.”

Alaric paused, taking it all in. His brain, not to mention his protective instincts, were in overdrive and all he could hear beyond his kids’ explanations was the blood rushing in his veins. He felt cold as ice as he began putting pieces of the puzzle together.

“Hope and Penelope,” he said urgently. “Where are they now? And the rest of the students?”

“I don’t know. They told us to get the girls out of there so we did. They stayed behind with Rafael and Landon,” MG explained.

“Yeah, and everybody else was getting the hell outta there before we even took off,” Kaleb supplied.

“Should we go back for them?” MG asked.

“No,” Alaric said firmly, walking across the room and over to a cabinet. He opened the door, to reveal a small arsenal and took out a few weapons and a gun which he began tucking away in various pockets and holsters around his body. When he closed the doors and turned back to the teens, he looked ready for battle. “You four stay here. Do not, under any circumstances, leave the school. Do you understand? I’ll explain everything later.”

Before any of them could even process his orders enough to protest, the headmaster was gone.

 

* * *

 

* * *

Penelope was silently cursing herself as she felt a spell zing past her cheek, grazing her skin and creating a small, stinging cut just as she hit the ground. Next to her, she heard as much as felt Hope land beside her with a slight groan. Being a tribrid with vampiric and lycanthropic strength and speed, Hope was quicker back onto her feet and sent another hex flying in their adversary’s direction.

“Dammit! I thought he was a siphoner! How is he so strong?!” Penelope cursed just loud enough for Hope to hear it.

“How do you know who he is?” Hope asked, pulling the both of them behind the thick trunk of an oak tree.

Penelope quirked her signature eyebrow, regarding Hope tiredly but with all of her usual confidence. “You’re not the only one who’s ever picked up a book in the library. I’ve read all of Stefan Salvatore’s memoirs too. Not to mention Dr. Saltzman’s records, which- granted - are a bit drier but come with the added bonus of pictures of practically every supernatural person to enter Mystic Falls: the Salvatore brothers, the Bennett witches, your family… Malachai Parker.”

“Well, clearly you missed the part where he got turned into a hybrid,” Hope almost laughed, pressing her back up against the tree. “He’s siphoning from himself.”

“So, basically, there’s no chance in hell of us stopping him,” Penelope declared.

“Not like this, no,” Hope replied.

“So what’s our game plan?”

Hope took a deep breath and sighed. “Right now? We get back to the school, we find Dr. Saltzman, and we regroup and come up with a plan,” she said lowly. She looked through the branches of the trees, to where the lights of the Salvatore School were shining up ahead. “The barrier spell that protects the school grounds is maybe two-hundred feet that way,” she said, gesturing with her chin in the direction of the school. She turned to Penelope, “Think you can make it?”

Penelope nodded. A look of fierce determination steeled across her face. “I’ll make it or I’ll die trying, and I’m not giving this asshat the satisfaction.” “

Okay,” Hope exhaled. “Ready? Three… two… one, go!”

They both took off running, knowing what was behind them and what would happen if they weren’t fast enough.

* * *

* * *

In the foyer, Alaric ran into Rafael and Landon. With the help of Rafael’s pack, the pair were either leading or carrying a group of scared or otherwise injured kids into the Salvatore School. They all looked shaken but other than a few cuts, scrapes, burns, and immediately obvious concussions, no one seemed catastrophically harmed.

“Listen up, everyone! I know you’re all scared and wondering what’s going on, but right now we need to prioritize. If you are injured, go to the infirmary, otherwise go to your rooms and stay there until the situation is dealt with! Please!” Alaric announced.

Immediately, the teenagers began dispersing. All except for Landon, Rafael, and the pack of werewolves who follow the latter.

Alaric walked up to them, not noticing Hope or Penelope anywhere among the crowds. “We got everyone out of the woods and back to the school grounds safely, sir,” Rafael told him.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, we searched the whole woods using our powers. Everybody’s in,” Raf answered.

“Everybody but Hope and Penelope,” Landon pointed out anxiously.

Alaric’s gaze snapped to the enigma of a young man. “Where are they?”

“Here! We’re here!” Hope’s voice called from down the corridor.

The group of men still in the foyer turned to see the two girls rushing toward them.

“Is everybody okay? Everybody’s safe?” Hope asked immediately upon reaching them. The boys nodded and Hope sighed in relief before turning to Alaric. “And the twins?”

“They’re… shaken and confused but they’re safe for the time being,” Ric answered calmly, before jumping right back in with, “Hope, _what_ happened?”

Before Hope could respond and ask the headmaster to talk somewhere out of the earshot of everyone else, Penelope answered stonily, “Kai Parker happened.”

“That’s impossible,” Alaric answered firmly.

“I wish you were right, Dr. S,” Penelope answered, “but he’s back.”

Everybody stopped and looked at the headmaster. No one, not even Hope, had ever seen him look as angry and afraid as he did now. He turned around abruptly and began walking back toward his study, but his young protegee and her rag-tag group of friends followed him.

“Where are you going?” Hope asked.

“First, I need to call the girls’ mother and an old friend,” he stated plainly, stopping at his door and putting a hand on the doorknob. “Then I need to figure out how the _hell_ I am going to explain this to my daughters.”

And, with that, he disappeared behind the door once more.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait everybody! My week was insane and this weekend has been even more so! But here's chapter 3...

 

Despite the fact that everyone was supposed to be in their rooms, after Dr. Saltzman’s dramatic and abrupt exit, Penelope and Hope bid Landon and Rafael and good night and the boys headed to their dorm while the girls snuck into the library. The place was dark and quiet this time of night, no one was there except for the two of them and the pair naturally found themselves wandering toward the local references section where Stefan Salvatore’s diaries sat back-lit in a glass case.

The pair was quiet and museful for several long moments. Each took the time to process everything that had happened that night, knowing all too well how much worse it could have been if Kai Parker hadn’t decided to make his sudden reappearance in the woods that night with quite so much of a bang. The truth was, they were safe now, but for how long?

“People could have died out there tonight,” Hope thought aloud, finally unable to keep her thoughts to herself any longer. “We could have died. _The twins_ could have died. You know, we can joke all we want about DIYing it by pretending they’re Lizzie Saltzman while we’re killing zombies, but if anything ever _actually_ happened to either of them…”

Penelope looked thoughtful and hesitant for a moment before asking, “I know you’ve read the journals and records. Do you know about… what might happen to Josie and Lizzie… when they turn twenty-two...”

Hope’s brow furrowed and she shook her head.

Penelope seemed panicked for a moment and then her face relaxed back into her mask of indifference and she sighed, “Well, I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but since _now_ I know you’re going to ask me and if I don’t tell you, you won’t stop until you get answers…”

Penelope sighed, whether from exhaustion or disappointment or relief from no longer having to keep an obviously heavy secret, Hope might never know.

“It’s called The Merge,” Penelope began.. Leaning back against one of the library tables, crossing her arms, and sighing yet again, the raven-haired witch continued, “It’s how the Gemini Coven used to determine their leaders back when there was a Gemini Coven. Twins were naturally in line for leadership, but only one could be the leader. So they had a ritual, wherein the twins fought a battle of wills and magic. In the end, the stronger of the twins absorbed the other’s magic, making one of them stronger and causing the other twin to… well, die.  
“Kai Parker was the twins’ biological mother’s twin brother. He killed his sister so that he could become the next in line to lead the Gemini Coven, but he was… I mean, he _is_ obviously a psychopath. So they trapped him in a magical hell prison.”

Hope’s face registered shock and horror. “That’s…” She swallowed thickly and continued in a choked voice, “And the girls don’t know? Isn’t there a way to stop it? And how do you even know?”

Penelope walked around the table to look out the window at the charred and blackened treeline that surrounded the school grounds. Despite being partially turned away, Hope saw the other girl’s features darken as she stared out at the evidence of the night’s foreboding events.

“Last year, just like I was tonight, I was at a party at the Old Mill. I got challenged to break into the headmaster’s office. When I did, I found a book on the Gemini Coven. I knew it was Josie’s coven, so I wanted to read it. I found out a little bit too much, and then I got busted.” Penelope laughed mirthlessly. “I thought Dr. S was going to expel me, instead he recruited me to help him and Ms. Forbes in their mission to prevent The Merge from happening.  
“You know, Lizzie Saltzman and I didn’t always hate each other so much. We were actually something like friends in the beginning, when the girls first welcomed me to Salvatore. But seeing Josie _constantly_ give up parts of herself for her sister, finding out about The Merge and _knowing_ what would happen to her if that didn’t change? It made me resent Lizzie, sometimes it made me resent Josie too.”

Hope approached Penelope slowly and leaned against the wall next to her. She stared at her and waited for what the witch might say next. She never had understood Penelope’s reasons behind breaking up with Josie and she hadn’t much cared at the time, but she did now and it made sense to her. When it seemed Penelope didn’t have more to say, Hope thought it was her turn to talk.

“Is that why you broke up with her?”

Unexpectedly, Penelope’s face fell into a soft, somewhat pained smile. “Falling for Josie Saltzman was never part of the plan,” she said. “My job was to keep an eye out for the girls, make sure they were never any the wiser about The Merge or their parents’ efforts to stop it, and keep them safe. The closer I got to Josie, though, the harder I fell for her, and then the more lying to her felt… wrong and cruel, like a betrayal that she was never going to be able to forgive. So I ended it with her, broke her heart. And mine too, while I’m being honest. The most ironic part is, I couldn’t even tell her why; so, naturally, I became ‘Satan’ to her and Lizzie. At least being Satan kept me around them, kept me doing what I promised Dr. Saltzman I would do. Protecting her- protecting _them_.”  
Then the witch took a deep breath and continued, “But none of it is going to matter a bit if we don’t find a way to send Kai Parker back to whatever hell prison he came from before he actually succeeds in killing the girls.”

“We’re not going to let that happen, Penelope.”

The girls looked at each other, sharing a look of equal parts determination and trepidation. One thing was for certain. They had quite a fight ahead of themselves.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Alaric was with the twins in their dorm room, attempting to answer their questions while maintaining some of the secrecy he had kept up for so long now.

“Dad, that man… in the forest? We’ve seen him before, haven’t we?” Josie asked shakily.

Alaric was beginning to wonder if all his years of keeping secrets from his daughters were finally up.

“Yes, sweetheart, you have,” Alaric answered.

“Who is he?” Lizzie asked.

Alaric let out a sound that was part-groan and part-sign as he rubbed his face stressfully before looking both of his daughter in the eyes. "His name is Malachai Parker," Alaric explained. "Kai. And he's your uncle, your biological mother's twin brother."

"Jo had a twin too?"

"What does he want with us?"

"Oh, girls..."

"Dad," Lizzie interrupted him, staring at him with a look that was both stony and pleading, "tell us the truth. What does this 'Uncle Kai' want with me and Josie?"

Their father stood up from where he had been sitting across from his daughters on Lizzie's bed. He looked at his girls with hurt reflecting in his eyes like the haunted man that he truly was. He had been keeping so many secrets to protect his daughters for years, believing that the worst that could harm them was The Merge. And now Kai Parker had mysteriously returned. 

"You want to know what he wants with you, Elizabeth? He wants you and your sister dead," Alaric said plainly. "He murdered your mother - the love of my life - on our wedding day and, if the Gemini Coven hadn't transferred the two of you to your Mom, he would have succeeded in killing both of you that day too. He tried to kill you again when you were four, that's why you might remember him, but your Mom and I stopped him."

"But  _why_ _?_ _"_ Josie asked. "Dad, why does he want us dead?"

" _That_ is a very long,  _very_ complicated story, and tonight has been long and complicated enough as it is," Alaric said. "Any other questions you have, I'll answer in the morning, but it's late, you girls have been through an ordeal, and you should get some rest. We'll figure the rest out in the morning. For now, I'm going to have Hope put a barrier spell around your room to keep you safe."

Although a million thoughts were still burning in both twins' minds, they nodded acquiescingly. 

Their father strode to the door but stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned back to his daughters. "I love you both so much," he told them sincerely.

"We love you too, Dad."

As soon as Alaric was out of the room, the girls looked at each other. It didn't take their twin bond to see that each of them had millions of more questions swimming in their eyes.

What wasn't their father telling them? Why did their uncle want them dead? Why had he killed their biological mother?

And why, of all people, had Penelope Park - Josie's ex and the Devil Incarnate - come to their defense that night?

The only thing either of them really knew just then was that they intended to find out.

* * *

"Thanks for helping me with this barrier spell," Hope said to Penelope once the two had finished erecting the invisible shield around the twins' dorm room.

"No problem. I mean, it's  _literally_ part of my job description: stalk the twins, keep them from finding out the family secret, protect them from themselves, each other, and familicidal psychopaths by casting kickass barrier spells when necessary... Standard operating procedure," Penelope quipped with her trademark smirk.

A smirk of her own came to Hope's face. "You know, Park, you talk a big game about being a disaffected she-devil, but I saw you tonight. That look in your eyes when you knew Josie and Lizzie were in danger? I saw it the night of the twins' birthday too. You can pretend not to care all you want, but I see the real you and you're not the heartless vindictive bitch you let everyone think you are. You care."

Penelope scoffed. "Yeah, well, tell anyone else that and I will set you on fire and watch you burn, Mikaelson."

"And here I was thinking that setting fires was Josie's thing," Hope laughed softly. "Maybe you two  _are_ perfect for each other."  
She put her hand on the doorknob and turned to Penelope, who took a step back at Hope's actions. Hope's brow furrowed. "I'm going to check on Josie and Lizzie. Make sure they're alright after everything they've been through tonight."

"Good idea," Penelope said.

"Aren't you coming too?" 

Penelope shook her head. "Nah, you go. I'm going to go help Dr. Saltzman research a way to send Kai Parker back to whatever hell dimension he found his way out of," she explained. Then, shrugging her shoulders, she added jokingly, "Plus, I'm pretty sure Lizzie spelled the room so that I can't enter."

"Researching dusty tomes or getting thanked by the girl you're in love with for saving her neck, and you pick the dusty books," Hope laughed softly. "Suit yourself."

"Someone's gotta do it," Penelope returned, walking backwards in the direction of Dr. Saltzman's office. "And we both know Josie hates me way too much to ever thank me for anything." Then, Penelope turned around, tossing over her shoulder a, "Catch you later, Mikaelson."

Hope sighed. Penelope was stubborn and, as it seemed, so was Josie. The trouble was, now that Hope considered them both to be her friends, she found herself rooting for what appeared to be their doomed relationship. As much as she had called Penelope on the carpet for faking her disaffectedness, she knew that she herself was also not immune to becoming emotionally invested in the goings-on surrounding their unlikely and often tenuous circle of friends.

Sometimes the reality of being a teenager really sucked.

Hope knocked on the twins' door and, upon hearing two soft 'come in's, she opened the door and stepped inside.

Both the girls were in their pajamas. It was well past midnight and Josie and Lizzie looked exhausted but not completely unhappy nor unsurprised to see Hope standing in their bedroom at nearly one in the morning, still in her own attire from the party which was now ripped in places and covered in dirt, soot, and blood from her battle with Kai Parker. She offered the girls a somewhat sheepish, supportive smile as she came in.

"Hey," she greeted them.

"Hey."  
"Hi, Hope."

A short but awkward silence followed before Hope took a step toward the girls and began by saying, "So, Penelope and I did a barrier spell around your room to back up the barrier spell around the school that acts as a back up to the barrier spell around the school gates. _And_ , just to be even more on the safe side, if Kai Parker  _does_ manage to get through all three spells, there will be a very real, alive and kicking tribrid outside your door tonight ready to give him hell if he tries to get to you."

"You're going to sit outside our door all night? What are you now? Our bodyguard?" Lizzie quipped in her typical bitchy way. Her smile, however, was far from the condescending sneer she typically wore when speaking to Hope the way she was now.

"Lizzie!" Josie hissed disapprovingly. She turned to Hope then, "What Lizzie  _means_ to say is 'thank you, Hope'."

" _Lizzie_ is standing right here," Lizzie cut in, cutting eyes at her sister before turning back to their friend. "But yes, thank you, Hope."

"You're welcome," Hope said. "Good night, girls."

Just as Hope was about to leave, Lizzie spoke up again. "You know," she began, standing up from the edge of her bed.

Hope turned around with her hand on the knob of the door to look the blonde Saltzman twin.

"You could, like, stay _in here_ ," Lizzie continued. "We could all watch a movie, maybe make it a girls' night? If you wanted to."

Hope smiled softly in that way of hers and approached them slowly. "Yeah, I might like that," she replied. "Just let me changed my clothes."

Josie and Lizzie exchanged small, discreet, excited smiles as Hope left the room temporarily, only to return a few minutes later wearing her pajamas (that got a remark out of Lizzie that was quickly chastised by Josie and earned a playful eyeroll out of Hope) and a stolen bucket of popcorn that Hope managed to pop with a spell learned from her Aunt Freya (definitely not with the intent of popping popcorn). The girls settled in with a movie and, despite their terrible night and the danger that lurked outside for all of them, all three fell asleep with smiles on their faces that night, Lizzie and Josie curled in Lizzie's bed and Hope sprawled on Josie's.

 

 


End file.
